Update from the Customer Voice Board
Your Customer Voice Board met on the 4th of December to review Prima’s performance, proposals for reviewing the rent increase due in May 2024 and the new Safeguarding Policy.
It was good to see the work going on in neighbourhoods and supporting people to sustain their tenancies. We saw that:
Prima’s Income Officers had supported 139 households directly, bringing in almost £27,000 during the last 3 months.
Raise, the independent money and benefit advice charity helped boost 47 Prima tenant's income by a further £14,740.
Primas Tenancy Sustainment Team helped 143 households with support on hoarding, ASB issues, domestic abuse, mental health referrals, foodbank and fuel crisis referrals. They also supplied small household appliances worth £1,255 and furniture through the British Heart Foundation for £1,080.
The Big Door Knock project continued focusing on homes in Liverpool, and we’re looking forward to it starting on the Wirral in the new year.
The team continue to seek resolutions to ASB cases, with 35 cases live during the last three months.
We saw that work was continuing to improve homes with:
58 bathrooms replaced - 23 in Drake Road and Birket Avenue, and 35 in Aylward and Glover Place.
15 kitchens were replaced, with a further 27 planned over the next three months.
Decarbonisation works to make homes more efficient were completed for 188 properties in Wave 1 and work has started on Wave 2, covering 226 further homes.
There were 1881 routine repairs completed, 1129 emergency and 1682 urgent during the last three months.
We reviewed the Customer Feedback report and could see there were 16 stage 1 and 3 stage 2 complaints recorded during the last three months.
The Tenant Satisfaction Measures Survey has been running for six months, and we looked at the mid-year results and compared this to how other housing associations were performing – you can see the results on the tenant satisfaction measures link above.
It was good to see a focus on customer engagement with three ways to get involved being prioritised – so if you want to join us on the Customer Voice Board, would like to be part of our Scrutiny Group or be a Policy Consultant, please get in touch- it would be great to hear your voices too.
We had a good look at the Safeguarding Policy. It is an important policy, and we were pleased to see how comprehensive it is.
It was useful to hear about and discuss the proposed changes to the repair service, and we had a good discussion on what that would mean for customers.
Finally, we looked at the potential rent increase being considered for May 2024 in line with the Government guidelines; this is likely 7.7%. Further work is being done on assessing what this means for tenants and the organisation’s finances, as there are still ongoing pressures on households finances from the cost of living crisis.
The Customer Voice Board raised importance points about how the rent increase will impact on families in different ways and they were keen to see Prima continue to offer support to those most impacted by any rent increase. In addition, they also discussed the changes coming to those moving onto Universal Credit and those paying the bedroom tax, who will may be further impacted financially. A further report will be prepared looking at these issues in more detail with a decision being made in the new year, with tenants being informed in April.